England v NZ, 3rd Test, Trent Bridge, 5th-9th June

Or the Euro, whichever comes first.

Nah, rugby in 40 minutes

1.40 start. Good-oh.

taipan wrote:Play abandoned for the day.

No matter the rugby test starts soon.

Why does cricinfo say NZ are 123-9 then?????

Make that 123 all out!

123 all out.

7 for Jimmy, 2 for Broad, 1 for Sidders.

Still a decent pitch but as always in England conditions play a massive part - 241 behind, I guess the only thing to do is shove them back in?

CricMofo say we have, Mr Lever.

Hate inserting teams again personally, it's the only way NZ can level the series from here.

And you rarely if ever repeat the same trick of knocking them over for what you did...

eowyn wrote:CricMofo say we have, Mr Lever.

Quite so, White Lady of Rohan.

No chance for Bell and Colly to redeem themselves, I expect.

Ian Smith having a good sook over Sibo's chat with How. Get a grip purrlease!

JKLever wrote:Hate inserting teams again personally, it's the only way NZ can level the series from here.

And you rarely if ever repeat the same trick of knocking them over for what you did...

I'm with you on this. Botham said it was a no-brainer as the current conditions are bowler friendly so enforce the follow on. But thats crazy we are 1 nil up with only this game left - why give the Kiwi's any hope at all? We should have just scored a couple of hunderd with no pressure and there would be no way back...

DJ_Smerk wrote:Ian Smith having a good sook over Sibo's chat with How. Get a grip purrlease!

Yeah, feck me he's going on for a good 5 minutes like it's the worst thing he's ever seen on a cricket field...

Ah, I forgot the Kiwis like to do their sledging in the papers after they've gone 1-0 up (a la Chris Martin)

JKLever wrote:Hate inserting teams again personally, it's the only way NZ can level the series from here.

And you rarely if ever repeat the same trick of knocking them over for what you did...

Eh? How many sides have won after following on in the 130 year history of Test cricket? Three.

I think we're pretty safe.....

How many times has a team won from being made to follow on? From the top of my head it is less than 5. And I am pretty sure most of those times the team following on had more than a couple of half-decent batsmen.

Enforcing it is the right decision.

No doubt you are both right.

I'm just a born pessimist....

The three succesful follow-ons were:

Some game in the 1894 Ashes.

Headingley '81.

India vs Australia in 2001.


Nearly 100 years before the first and the second. 20 years between the second and the third. Besides, NZ don't have a Bobby Peel or an Ian Botham or a Bob Willis or any of India's batsman.


Interesting - Australia were the losing side all three times.

Rob I wrote:

eowyn wrote:CricMofo say we have, Mr Lever.

Quite so, White Lady of Rohan.

No chance for Bell and Colly to redeem themselves, I expect.

We'll see no doubt.

Broad gets his man!

45 for 2 at tea. I'd give Monty the first over after the interval on the basis that the NZers won't be expecting it - you never know, they might try to get stuck into him and give up the odd soft wicket.

ten years after wrote:

Allan D wrote:


You're right to an extent as the term "all-rounder" has come into general misuse. By my definition, it should mean, at Test level, a player who is capable of being selected as either a specialist batsman or bowler which would mean players such as Sobers (although he was originally selected as a teenage slow left-armer batting at No.9.), Imran and, probably, Kapil Dev woulld be included in that category but Hadlee might have struggled to keep his place in the New Zealand side purely as a batsman and Botham can only be fitfully considered as an all-rounder (as can Flintoff) and I don't think Kallis would have played many games for the Saffies purely as a bowler, useful though he is.

A very enjoyable post Allan_D but i disagree with some of the quoted paragraph. So few test cricketers have met your criteria for all rounder status that the term has to be interpreted more broadly or it would have no real meaning. Imran was an all time great bowler and averaged mid 50s batting higher than no. 7 so he qualifies. Aubrey Faulkner was test class as both batsman and bowler. These two may be the only two definite all rounders on this basis.

However i think Botham belongs there too. Undoubtedly test class as a bowler he batted 5 or 6 for the bulk of his career and would have been selected as a batsman alone for the middle 50 tests of his career. I suspect Procter would have joined the list if given the chance.

Sobers, good bowler though he was, would not have had a long career for the West Indies if he batted at 11. Kapil Dev would have played very few tests just as a batsman. He rarely batted above 7 and with little success when he did. His batting may have won him a few caps on its own account in the late 80s but by that time his bowling was barely of test standard.

Your good bio of Rhodes illustrated that he can hardly be considered an all-rounder at test level at all. He was either a batsman or a bowler but rarely both. His position in history is guaranteed by his bowling up to 1905 during which time he was probably the best Slow Left Arm bowler who has ever lived. God knows what he may have achieved had he not decided he fancied his hand as a batsman.

I agree with most of the above although I think you make some howlers as egregious as those I made such as:

ten years after wrote: Sobers, good bowler though he was, would not have had a long career for the West Indies if he batted at 11

Really??? If I was wrong about Kallis this statement is equally preposterous, if not more so, especially to anyone who saw him bowl, as I did, even in the latter stages of his career. With 235 wickets @ 34.04 he would have been a precious asset to any West Indian side even if he had been marked "absent 0" in the scorebook of every Test he ever played in. He began his career as a finger-spinner, then learned to bowl orthodox and unorthodox wrist-spin before turning to left-arm pace and finally left-arm swing, all to Test level. Ray Illingworth reckoned that the 1960 English tourists (of whom he was one) faced a four-man pace attack in Hall, Griffith, Sobers and Chester Watson equally as potent as any of the sides that were later fielded under Clive Lloyd (although, of course, he had no experience of the latter) .
Your next sentences are equally bizarre:

ten years after wrote: Kapil Dev would have played very few tests just as a batsman. He rarely batted above 7 and with little success when he did.

5248 runs@ 31.05 is not a bad record with the bat to me especially as it included 8 centuries, only one less than Stephen Fleming made in his whole career, 3 of which were against successive West Indian pace attacks (1 in the Caribbean) over a period of almost a decade. This was 3 more than Botham ever made against the same attack in the same period. Botham's lacuna against the strongest attack of his era throws a long shadow over his claim to be considered a great all-rounder. This is not the case with Kapil Dev.

As for his batting position the same criticism might have been levelled against Jessop who rarely batted above 7 for England. Was he not really a batsman? Archie MacLaren once said that he would have selected Jessop purely as a fielder even had he not been able to bat as his mere presence on the field induced doubt and hesitation in the batsman's mind before taking a run. Jessop's occasional flourishes with the bat, therefore, came as a significant bonus to England.

In the 3rd Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in December 1992 Kapil Dev went out to bat in India's 2nd innings with the score at 27-5 (soon to be 31-6) and facing a rampant Allan Donald. He proceeded to make 129 out of the remaining 188 runs scored. Although unlike Jessop at The Oval 90 years earlier it did not affect the outcome it was an innings of Jessop-like proportions and I doubt if the spectators or the South African players (particularly Donald) who felt the rough edge of Kapil's bat that day would have agreed with your assessment that Kapil Dev "had little success" with the bat.

Your comments about Rhodes are factually accurate but miss the point. In his Test career Rhodes took 127 wickets @26.97 in 58 matches while scoring 2325 runs @30.19 but he took 76 of those wickets in his first 4 series (3 of them at home) between 1899-1905 in which he usually batted in the last 3 and 1235 runs in the 4 series against South Africa and Australia immediately preceding WWI (3 of them away) in which he bowled only casually.

However his overall Test record is better than that of Trevor Bailey who was England's first choice all-rounder during the 1950s (and who, like Rhodes, occasionally opened the innings) and who took 132 wickets @29.21 and scored 2290 runs @29.74 in 61 Tests. This Australian webmaster rates Rhodes as the 13th greatest Test all-rounder, slightly inferior to Davidson but, oddly in my view, better than Kapil Dev:

Rated List of Test All-Rounders

You're right, however, in that we should divide Rhodes' Test career into 3 parts, the first from 1899-1909 when he was principally a slow left-armer, the second from 1909-14 when he became England's regular opener (after little previous success with the bat) with Jack Hobbs and the third after WWI when he reverted to bowling making only one 50. hodes' only significant all-round performance in a match, although in a losing cause, was at the SCG in the last Test of Alan Jones' unsuccessful tour of 1907-8 (England lost 4-1) when he took 4-102 in Australia's second innings, opening the bowling with Barnes, and top-scored with 69, batting at 7, in the fourth innings which concluded 50 runs short of the winning post.

Rhodes' place in cricket history, like that of Grace, rests not so much on his international achievements but on his fc career, both in terms of longevity and achievement. In a career spanning five calendar decades he stands securely at the head of the aggregate wicket-takers with almost 4200 wickets, over 400 ahead of his nearest rival, the Kent legspinner, Percy "Tich" Freeman and way ahead of specialist bowlers such as Charlie Parker (who might have disputed Rhodes' claim as the greates ever slow left-armer had he been given the Test opportunities his talent deserved although denied to him on the grounds, curiously, of his supposed lack of batting ability), J.T.Hearne and Alex Kennedy who had careers of equal, if not greater, length as Rhodes. He took 1300 more wickets than Grace whose career lasted 44 seasons with no interruption for war. In addition Rhodes is 18th on the list of aggregate runscorers scoring almost 40000 runs for the most part batting lower down in the order of Yorkshire and England sides that included the greatest talents of his era.

His record is a tribute to his stamina and facility with both bat and ball. He links The Golden Age with the more recognisable form of the game where the bat generally predominates over the ball. He was one of a handful of players who bowled at both Grace and Bradman in fc matches (I had a long discussion with Wide Wally and Skully a few years ago on the C4 Forum and I think the others were Barnes, Parker and Kennedy although I may be wrong) Given the abbreviation of fc cricket and that of the careers of most players Rhodes' record as the leading wicket-taker and leading all-rounder in fc cricket should stand for eternity.

The recognition Rhodes had from his peers is illustrated by an anecdote I've recounted on this site before (remembered from reading an article on Rhodes in the "Playfair Cricket Monthly" in the 1960s) when, now blind, he visited the Scarborough Festival in 1953 accompanied by his self-appointed amanuensis and former Yorkshire bowling partner and batting partner from the Oval Test of half a century earlier, George Hirst. Their lunch in the members' tent was briefly interrupted by a visit from The Don who was solemnly introduced to the assembled throng by ACB officials in attendance. Hirst, unimpressed by visiting celebrity, especially of the Antipodean variety, remarked after the reception party had left:

"If that were Sir Donald Bradman, him 'ere ought to be Earl Rhodes."

jerking his thumb at his companion.

A bit harsh on The Don, perhaps, but like Bradman, Rhodes can be said to have been without equal, whose like will probably never be seen again.

Basil wrote:45 for 2 at tea. I'd give Monty the first over after the interval on the basis that the NZers won't be expecting it...

Depends if they read the FB or not.

Hiya, Flynny How's the teeth?

Dello wrote:

Basil wrote:45 for 2 at tea. I'd give Monty the first over after the interval on the basis that the NZers won't be expecting it...

Depends if they read the FB or not.

Ah well, England's loss

What if England read too? They'll read this wonder if the UnZedders are reading wonder if they should send out Monty cos the the UnZedders will be expecting him then think send him out anyway 'cos the UnZedder will think England know we're expecting him and so they won't send him......

Allan D wrote:

Botham's lacuna against the strongest attack of his era throws a long shadow over his claim to be considered a great all-rounder.

Why? By your criterion, Lamb is a better batsman than Gower, though he was hapless against good spinners.

Rob I wrote:

Allan D wrote:

Botham's lacuna against the strongest attack of his era throws a long shadow over his claim to be considered a great all-rounder.

Why? By your criterion, Lamb is a better batsman than Gower, though he was hapless against good spinners.

I'm not sure either of those statements are correct. Certainly Lamb had a knack of taking centuries off the Windies' attack, especially in England, usually in a losing cause, whilst all around him were being sent packing but his Test average against India is 43.85 compared to his average against the Windies of 34.41 which hardly suggests to me that Lamb was "hapless" against spinners. Gower's overall Test average against the Windies is only slightly inferior to that of Lamb at 32.83 despite the latter's preponderance of 3 figure scores. However if you look at their respective records against the Windies in the Caribbean where their pace attack was even more potent in the '80s Gower with a Test average of 43.88 has a distinct advantage over Lamb with an average of 36.12.

So your assumption that "by your criterion" (meaning presumably performances against the West Indies) does not bear out your conclusion that Gower was necessarily inferior to Lamb. If you were to ask my opinion, rather than ascribe a false one to me, I would consider that, over his whole career and bearing in mind the quality of the opposition he faced and the difference he made to the match result, I would say that Graham Gooch was superior to both of them, but that's hardly original or particularly controversial.